


The Godservant

by SilverWing15



Series: Dragon Eugenics Hell [1]
Category: Flight Rising
Genre: Gen, I dunno yall, I guess I write flight rising shit now, enjoy dragon eugenics hell I guess?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-02
Updated: 2019-08-02
Packaged: 2020-07-29 15:36:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20084593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverWing15/pseuds/SilverWing15
Summary: They tell him that his father is beautiful, that his mother is powerful. They croon that he will unite their greatness and bring it forth in countless generations. They whisper that though his father is a light dragon, he will be shadow, he will bring power and prestige to their clan, to their god.





	The Godservant

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Beautiful](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8147051) by [WerewolvesAreReal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WerewolvesAreReal/pseuds/WerewolvesAreReal). 

> This was heavily inspired by Beautiful, by WerewolvesareReal. Especially the first bit, its a super awesome fic for a super awesome fandom and you should def check it out. Moving on, I don't know how far this series is going to go tbh. Its not a priority project and I rarely get on Flight Rising iself these days. It is something fun to work on for fun though so there may be more than the three first pieces which are all getting uploaded on the same day cause technically I wrote them all a long ass time ago.

_ They tell him that his father is beautiful, that his mother is powerful. They croon that he will unite their greatness and bring it forth in countless generations. They whisper that though his father is a light dragon, he will be shadow, he will bring power and prestige to their clan, to their god.  _

_ Beside him, his siblings chirp eager replies. He joins and his voice makes the whisperers quiet. For a moment, he thinks that perhaps he has done something wrong, then warmth wraps around the shell of his world.  _

_ They tell him his voice is beautiful, the most beautiful they have ever heard. They tell him he will be  _ Magnificent.  _ He sings to them that he can’t wait.  _

_ The world grows small and cramped, he presses against the walls and feels them buckle. The voices are singing encouragement, and he sings determination in return. Light floods his eyes and the world grows ten million times in size with one single crack.  _

*** 

  
“I’m here!” he sings, “I’m here! Look at me, aren’t I beautiful as you said?” He must be, for his scales shine, blacks and browns and greens. The same colors as the beautiful, beautiful world around him. He puffs his chest forward and looks up to see the singers at last. 

They are speaking to a towering white dragon, though they are all towering to him. His lip curls, surely this dragon is  _ ugly _ . Blisteringly bright, and not at all like the world around them. 

“Ah,” says one of them, “that’s that I suppose.” This one is colored with bright greens and pinks.  _ Ugly  _ he thinks,  _ surely this is what ugly looks like. _

“Don’t worry,” says another, “you get some like this in every batch, its no reflection on you.” Her scales are glittering and bright, is she ugly too?

“Too bad about that voice though,” says a third. This one is colored in purples and blues. 

“He will use it to sing praises to the Shadowbinder,” the final speaker is looming over him, nudging him with his polished muzzle. Colored blue and red. It is striking it is bright, surely  _ this  _ is an ugly dragon. 

“Aren’t I beautiful?” he asks, even as the ancient dragon nudges him away from the shattered remnants of his tiny, dark world. 

The ancient dragon doesn’t answer, only herds him to a small gathering of other hatchlings. Their colors are dull, or mismatched. One has a wing that hangs oddly from her side. They, he realizes, are not beautiful.  _ He  _ is not beautiful. 

He casts a glance back at his tiny shattered world and wishes he could go back. Back to the dark where the beauty of his colors did not matter, only the beauty of his voice. He wishes that he’d never come into the light, into this massive world that somehow, manages to be smaller than the one he came from. 

*** 

They do not call him beautiful at the temple. They call him  _ singer,  _ they call him  _ tithe,  _ they call him  _ servant.  _ Here, at least, his colors do not matter, only his voice. They do not want him to speak, only to sing with his beautiful voice. Songs of shadows and praise for their mistress. 

So he sings. He sings of her beauty, of the shining of her luminous eyes, of the strength of her wings. He lifts his beautiful voice from his ugly throat and sings praise to the goddess that is so so  _ beautiful. _

He sings day and night, his voice echoing over the river, over the clouded scrying pool, over the shadows and the moon. The nameless priests stop on their endless patrols and sacrifices to hear him sing and they call his voice  _ beautiful _ . 

It tastes bitter, it tastes like mockery and derision though he knows they don’t mean it that way. 

*** 

Once, his father comes to the temple. Even the highest priests scrape and bow to be visited by these shining  _ beautiful _ dragons. Whose eyes glint with health and life, whose colors swirl in mesmerizing patterns, whose scales are polished and cleaned with pride. 

They call his father  _ healer _ . They call him a  _ servant of Light _ . They call him  _ beautiful _ . 

It burns in the back of his throat like acid, more bitter than anything else he has tasted. 

His father, he learns, was a Light dragon who, for one reason or another, left his clan. No one can agree if it was a trade of pedigrees or if he was captured in a raid, or if he was outcast. No one cares though, because Zephyr is  _ beautiful  _ and  _ powerful, _ and his healing has saved countless lives. 

He learns that his father is considered one of the most beautiful in the clan, even without his healing powers. His scales shine in the darkness, whites and golds and blue-greens that swirl over his shoulders and wings. The delicate grey of his paws. He is beauty incarnate. 

He looks at his father and he looks at his own muddy colors and he wonders,  _ how could something so ugly come from someone so beautiful?  _ He sees the way the other priests look at him and wonder the same thing. 

He is a stain on his father’s legacy and it tastes bitter on the back of this throat. How dare he seek to make someone like Zephyr lesser? How dare he be born so  _ ugly _ . 

His father speaks to the priests and they show him the newest arrival, who is sickly and weak even to the temple. The hatchling is ugly. With a dull purple coat and random patches of brilliant orange that give the impression that someone has thrown up on her. 

Zephyr heals her anyway. Touches her ugly scales with his beautiful ones and speaks to her gently. 

He is surprised to learn that his father’s voice is nothing special. It is not ugly, nothing about Zephyr could be ugly, but it isn’t as beautiful as his own voice. 

His father glances at him once, and his beautiful yellow eyes, smiling down at the hatchling he has healed, dim with disappointment. 

Then he leaves. 

  
  


That night, when he raises his voice to sing of the Shadowbinder’s beauty, his voice has a bitter, mocking edge to it. How beautiful is his goddess, more beautiful than the sun and the light, more beautiful than the glittering ice and the raging storms. 

How  _ beautiful. _ He laughs. So  _ beautiful _ . He mocks with derision. As if  _ beauty _ means anything. Why should it? Here in the darkness where no one can see clearly anyway. 

He laughs himself sick and sobs himself sicker. He rakes his claws over ancient trees, twisted and gnarled. Lashes his tail and disturbs the scrying mirror, muddled and murky. There is no  _ beauty  _ here. 

“Do not destroy the temple,” the head priest says, she doesn’t admonish the anger, only the expression of it in the temple. 

He flies over the walls and unleashes his anger beyond them. His roars shake the trees, send animals fleeing and flying away from him. His claws tear through plant and rock and the water churns around him. 

When his anger is spent, he collapses in the shallow water and can’t bring himself to move. His eyes close. 

_ …... _ ** _No_ ** _ … _ ** _.that is not a proper end at all_ ** _ ….. _

_ His eyes open and he stares into the face of his goddess. She is not beautiful. She is  _ horrifying.  _ He has spent his years singing of the shine in her eyes, the glittering sleekness of her scales, the delicate colors of her mighty wings.  _

_ Her eyes shine like the eyes of long-dead things. Glassy and milky and somehow, staring right through him.  _

_ Her scales glitter wetly, melting down her body. Thick and viscous, creeping through the water. Dead fish float up in its wake.  _

_ Her wings are torn and limp at her sides. Her colors are muddy and muted: murky purple, dull green, muddy brown and watery black.  _

_ She laughs at his horror. It is rasping and rattling, as though it might shake her entire, melting body apart to make such a sound. “ _ ** _....so surprised to see me…..am I not beautiful, my son?_ ** _ ”  _

_ He dares not reply because the only possible answer is  _ No. _ _

_She shakes her head. “_**_Such foolishness….that my children have fallen to….such pointless vanity….Not you though….little ugly thing…..” _**_She laughs again. It sounds more like a death rattle. She looms over him, the sickly shadows that melt off of her skin swirl around his paws._ **_“I could use someone like you.”_**

He wakes to water in his nose, in his mouth, in his lungs. He coughs and chokes for hours, for days, it seems. When he can finally breathe again, he opens his eyes to find the world changed. The shadows remain as deep and dark as always, perhaps even darker, but he sees what they hide as though it is right in front of his muzzle. 

He doesn't see the world as though it is daylight, he sees the darkness and the shadows as he always has, but they do not hide things from him anymore. They easily offer up their secrets to him and him alone. 

“What--” he begins, and then stops, touching his throat with horror. His voice, his  _ beautiful _ voice is as raspy and rattling as  _ Hers _ had been. “What did you do to me?” he asks with his creaking, rattling, rasping voice. It sounds like claws against stone, like trees creaking in the night wind, like the death rattle of prey and foes. 

It is not  _ beautiful _ . Nothing about him is beautiful now. 

** _“A gift,” _ ** the shadows snicker in a rasping voice.  ** _“For my most devoted worshiper.” _ **

He doesn’t return to the temple. His goddess isn’t there, in the pale shadow of  _ beauty _ . She lives in the bog where he drowned, She lives in the black tears that drip from his eyes, in the gnarled, twisted branches of the trees, in the deepest, darkest shadows. 

She gives him her gift and she slips back into the shadows to see what he will do with it. 

He finds a bird with golden feathers and slaughters it. Cleans its skull and wears its _ beautiful _ golden feathers around his head and laughs at the idea of his father’s  _ beauty.  _ It is an ugly sound, but he is an ugly dragon, so at last, it fits. 

  
  



End file.
